


angels cry to have your photograph

by freloux



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Innuendo, Photography
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:21:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freloux/pseuds/freloux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor buys a camera, and life begins to imitate art.</p>
            </blockquote>





	angels cry to have your photograph

_Flashclick._

Clara looks up with a start. The Doctor is standing a few feet away, light from one of the three suns glinting off his sonic sunglasses. A thick black camera strap is looped around his neck. Lens protruding out, accentuating just how very skinny he is.

"What's that?" she jokes, "a sonic camera? Space camera?"

He rolls his eyes. "You don't have to add the word 'space' to everything, remember?"

But he keeps taking pictures of the licheny trees and the amphibious aliens that croak at them reproachfully. He seems to have forgotten that they are, in fact, in space at the moment.

"So where'd you buy it, then, if not in some little shop that wasn't there yesterday?" Clara asks as the shutter continues to make its neat little whirrs, taking in the scenery around them. (They've been to little shops that weren't there yesterday. It didn't end well.)

"I picked it up when you were at the off-license. London may be a dump but at least it has nice places to buy cameras."

***

_Flashclick._ It becomes a repeated, extra voice that joins them on their travels. The Doctor, clinging to his camera like he's clung to his guitar. Wearing a t-shirt that's got a logo of some indie band that existed before you existed but that doesn't exist anymore because that's just how the space-time continuum _works_ , Clara. Leather jacket thrown on over it. Sonic sunglasses, just to complete the Lou Reed aesthetic. Looking through the lens as though it will help him interpret what they're experiencing.

Clara wonders what this looks like for him: everything narrowly focused to that tiny square and the target in the middle.

"Can I see?" she finally needles.

With much grandiose sighing and reluctant shuffling, he hands over the camera. The air changes, then. A sense of extra care being taken as he puts it into her outstretched palms. Brush of skin. He watches her holding the camera and how she cradles it. The weight of the lens extending out, the plastic still warm from his hands.

***

If the Doctor is her hobby, then modelling for him becomes a subcategory within that hobby. For some reason he likes it when she stands in amongst the conduits that make up the console. Touching them, holding them. Rubbing, even. The conduits firm under her grip. And she'd be lying if she said she wasn't getting into it, too. Eyes shut, mouth stretched wide. Back arched a little.

"Don't be cute."

Clara opens her eyes again. "Oh, am I cute now?"

He clears his throat, hiding behind the camera once more. "Don't push it."

"I could be cuter. If you wanted." Holding his gaze, Clara slowly undoes her blouse. Just the first few buttons, enough to reveal more than a mere creamy sliver of skin.

"No, sort of - like this." He moves closer. "Turn, just a little - " His hands span her ribs as he adjusts her. The camera is cold and hard between them.

Clara looks back at him, over her shoulder.

_Flashclick._

***

Up next to him. Body heat, personal space. He's still crowded over the camera, obscuring whatever it is he's looking at. "How'd they turn out?"

He gives her the camera and Clara fiddles with the buttons, afraid to press something wrong and accidentally delete his work.

"Here," he says gently. Behind her, arms around her, hands over hers. He shows her which buttons to push.

"They're - " Clara can't quite hide her disappointment. Some are zoomed in: her face fills the frame, yet the shot is angled so that it doesn't look particularly wide. (How'd he manage that?) Some are in black and white, where the colour may have been bleached out but it makes her hair and her eyes look richer, darker. The only difference, from photo to photo, is her smile. It's not a true smile - it never gets to the point where the corners of her eyes have crinkled up. He's seeing her without seeing her.

She struggles to come up with a platitude, like one of those things you say when you've been given a beautiful gift but it's in the wrong size.

"What?" Short, brisk. He snatches back the camera.

"They're fine."

***

It's raining here - maybe it's always been raining - but instead of actual rain it's just glass. Glittery fragments pouring from the sky at a sideways angle for no discernible reason.

He's wearing the other coat this time, the longer and flashier one. A different band t-shirt underneath, though.

Except no camera. Clara has gotten so used to him carrying it around that he looks kind of naked without the thick strap around his neck. She asks him where it is and he waves his hand, conjuring up an excuse with the movement. "Left it in the TARDIS," he says finally.

It's an apology without being an apology, but she'll accept that. It's usually the most she can get out of him, anyway.

***

It turns out that he did, in fact, leave the camera on the TARDIS. He's off busy doing whatever it is he does in his spare time and she finds it tucked in amongst books and little figurines and models and charts that plot things she doesn't have names for. Clara picks it up, an idea forming as she does so.

She's going to repair this. Clara would be mad that she's been forced to - he could at least put in a little effort sometimes, right? - but he matters too much to her for her to be truly angry.

An offering. He asks her what she's planning. "Trust me."

They visit a tiny dwarf star that looks rather similar to Earth, except all the colours are backwards and the star itself orbits in retrograde. Clara attempts not to find any symbolism in that.

Over the course of the day, the Doctor adjusts. The camera goes back to being a part of him, like he's some kind of alien Chris Killip. He takes pictures of the plants, the buildings, offering a constant stream of chatter about it all as a counterpoint to the steady _flashclick_ she's gotten so used to by now. Pressing buttons so that everything shows up right under the infared light beating down on them. More often than not, though, he points his lens at her. He seems to sense that she's giving him her permission, that she knows he needs this. Neither of them posing or being posed. The Doctor and Clara, slowly learning to see each other again.

***

Back on the TARDIS, they examine the pictures together. They're in his...studio, Clara supposes she'd call it. The same place she found the camera to begin with. Filtered light. Easel-chalkboard thing nearby. (She'll never know what it is about him and chalk.) Both of them standing near a long table, the wood of it long since worn smooth. Prints of all the photos - photos of her - laid out in front of them. A project that they've completed together, without either of them forcing it. All her raw curiosity, captured in his lens.

"And, um, in this one, you're making that face where you're happy and sad at the same time and I'm not sure I captured it quite right," he says, looking down at her with that concerned/confused expression he gets sometimes. "But in this one you're actually smiling and I don't know why."

Clara remembers when that picture was taken. He'd said something, done something, that had made her laugh and she had been filled with utter warmth and tenderness.

"Because I was with you," Clara responds, and he goes very, very still. She knows she has to proceed with caution. It's like a photo developing - she doesn't want to mess up the chemicals or let the colour fade. "That's the face I make when I'm with you - really with you."

It's another invitation. Her turn to ask him to see her. Clara's throat has gone dry. She can't quite get the words out, but musters up her courage enough to try. "Because - because you're here with me, Doctor. Not in some frozen moment. Just - be here with me?"

The Doctor looks away, running his fingers over the camera. The groove of the lens, the raised bits on the body of the camera itself. Then he puts it very gently down on the table with only a slight plastic-y thump. Moves closer to her, then closer still. Almost no room in frame.

He kisses her in a shy, careful way until Clara pulls away and sits up on the table to give him a bit easier access, so he doesn't have to lean quite so far. When they bump noses she pauses only to pull back, wrinkle hers, and smile up at him before continuing. Presses her lips to his until he yields and she slides her tongue in, coaxing.

Clara's hands fall to his hips, smoothing over the fabric of his trousers - the movement of her hands asking him if he's alright with this, if he's ok with doing more. "I could be cute for you," she reminds him, quiet against his mouth. "You seem to like that."

He pulls back, surprised. Runs an absent-minded hand through his hair. "But aren't you? Already?"

The way he says this gives her that warm, tender feeling again. She's frankly a little overwhelmed by it. They exist there in his studio for a few moments, then, a not entirely awkward silence enveloping them both.

"What I meant was - " Clara's blushing. She has to be sure that he understands her because she's a bit tired of their wires getting crossed when all she wants right now is for their wires to cross in a very different way.

Delicate explaining, using polite words instead of naughty ones. Both their hands working together to bunch the fabric of his shirt before tugging it off and away. He really is that skinny underneath. But it's all hers, and she's all his, laughing through stubborn zippers and buttons until they're finally pressed skin to skin. Edge-align to form a new border together. Her depth of field limited just to him: standing in between her spread legs. Wetness, pressure. The pulse in his neck jumping, his fingertips on her thighs - fluttery at first, then gripping tight as she slides down onto him, again and again.

Clara whispers in his ear, arms around him, and finally understands why they're called sweet nothings: she's out of her mind and can't come up with anything else at the moment. They finally shudder together, gasping. Her ankles crossed at the small of his back, her hands on his neck and shoulder blade. Both of them smiling nervously at each other, unwilling to let this particular picture disappear.


End file.
